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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

India: Riding Coat Tails

INDIA

Riding Coattails

India recently released its 2018 Economic Survey outlining the success of the economic liberalization strategies that have effectively quadrupled the nation’s economy since 1991, making it the world’s third-largest economy behind China and the United States, the Washington Post reported.
But as India continues to experience rapid economic growth, the survey notes another troubling trend: Economic progress has yet to deliver on gender equality.
India is currently in what researchers have coined the “second stage” in the relationship between development and gender equality, meaning that while women may have made strides in joining the workforce and gaining more respect in public life, societal forces have sprung up to hinder further progress.
Hindu traditions of dowry, as well as women being excluded from inheritance rights, mean gender bias in India has economic roots, writes Business Standard – many families simply think they can’t afford to have girls.
The result is that selective abortion and premature death of girls due to neglect and even murder is still prevalent in Indian society, resulting in an estimated 63 million women “missing” from the population, the Guardian reported.
It’s why the nation’s birth ratio between girls and boys is even lower than it was a decade ago: Only 899 female births for every 1,000 boys.
Later on, societal factors continue to work against women – some local customs subject women to beatings and other penalties if they don’t pass a rudimentary virginity test on their wedding night, for example, Al Jazeera reported.
And almost 24 percent of women still report having been subjected to physical or sexual abuse in the past year, according to World Bank data cited by the Wire, a news website in India.
Strides have been made to level the playing field, the Wire reported: Data show that state-led efforts to promote female primary-school enrollment have significantly decreased the number of girls out of school to just a fraction of what it was in 1990.
Moreover, more niche gender identities in India have been officially recognized and protected, despite continued social stigmatization, the New York Times reported.
But women still lack equal access to basic social opportunities like proper health care and financial services, presenting a slew of challenges in finding organized work: They made up 24 percent of the labor force in 2016, compared to 36.3 percent 10 years prior, the Washington Post noted.
For its part, the 2018 Economic Survey admitted that India has work to do to tackle gender bias, which it states “is long-standing, probably going back millennia,” CNN reported.
In the meantime, women won’t be riding the coattails of India’s economic success story.

A Joyous Birthday Greeting To An Incredible Lady!

Mandy the night I was born, all the baby doctors in the hospital told my mom and dad that I would not live until the sunrise. (I was born 1.5 months premature.) One young intern just out of medical school, Dr. Harold Ross, did not agree with his senior doctors. He worked on me all night long and saved my life. I know all about beating impossible odds. It has been my honor to have you as a friend for 19 years. I have watched in amazement and deep admiration as you beat impossible odds. Have a joyous and a happy birthday.!A big hug for you from me, Elena, Pedro, Anna, Luah, Alfred and Alice.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Swimming In Cold Water Can Relieve Chronic Pain

Gone Swimming

Swimming in freezing cold water wouldn’t sound appealing to most, but one triathlete found it provided instant relief from his chronic pain.
After a successful surgery on his chest left him with chronic pain, and conventional treatments yielded no results, the 28-year-old athlete plunged into icy waters in a last-ditch attempt at relief.
“Once I was in the water, I had tunnel vision – for the first time in months, I completely forgot about the pain or the fear of shooting pains in my chest if I moved,” he told doctors conducting a study on his condition, which was recently detailed in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
Researchers believe this is the first documented case in which a shock of cold water resulted in the complete alleviation of a patient’s pain, though cold-water baths have been previously used to ease discomfort in athletes, the BBC reported.
There could be various explanations for the patient’s recovery – some say the sudden shock and his fear of drowning could have induced nervous system activity to the point of altered pain perception, for example.
Regardless, report author Tom Mole of the University of Cambridge told the BBC he hopes that it “gives new hope to people recovering from pain after surgery.”
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Sunday, February 25, 2018

The Paul Manafort Dilemma

The Paul Manafort Dilemma
At this time, we can only speculate at what information Paul Manafort has on illegal activities of Russian oligarchs, Vladimir Putin, and, perhaps, Donald Trump and his family.
If he did decide to cooperate with Special Prosecutor Mueller and begin to “tell all,” he would face the prospect of retaliation on he and his family by some very powerful Russian interests. Placement in the Witness Protection Program would be a part of any plea agreement.
This program began decades ago by the US Marshals Service to protect Mafia informants who turned against their former bosses. Despite the wealth of the major Mafia families in the US and Italy, this program has worked well. There were only problems when some person in the program did something stupid to “blow his or her cover.”
When the War on Drugs began in earnest, lower-level drug dealers who wanted to testify against their former bosses were put into this program. Despite the billions of dollars in resources of the drug cartels, the Witness Protection Program continued to work well and protect those giving information against big cartel leaders.
Placing Paul Manafort and his immediate families in the Witness Protection Program would create giant challengers for the US Marshals Service. If Manafort starts to talk about Russian oligarchs or Putin, the full resources of the Russian government including hackers and intelligence agents will be utilized to find Manafort and his family and extract some horrible revenge. Could they crack the US government security apparatus? As the saying goes from the late 1950’s:
“That is the $64,000 question.”


Friday, February 23, 2018

Bianca Has A Stage Premier 2

Bianca Has A Stage Premier 1

North Korea: National Brew

National Brew

Recent headlines out of North Korea have revolved around the Hermit Kingdom’s burgeoning nuclear program.
But another industry is also a point of pride for the Supreme Leader.
North Korea’s Taedonggang brewery recently launched a new beer using a special crafting technique that makes its brew “better than existing beers in terms of its taste and smell,” the BBC reported, citing a state newspaper.
The new technique replaces heaps of barley with wheat as the main ingredient and has won rave reviews from North Koreans, according to state media.
Kim Jong-un is reportedly a beer aficionado and has complained that imported brands had no taste. The new brew is being hailed as a success story of Kim’s “round-the-clock battle” to make life “more enjoyable for the people.”
But North Koreans will be the only people enjoying the new brew anytime soon. The new pint was scheduled to be unveiled at last July’s Pyongyang Beer Festival – a major tourist attraction for the otherwise isolated nation – but the event was canceled at the last minute without explanation.

Monday, February 19, 2018

How A Michael Flynn Plea Reversal Could Uncover Federal Corruption

How A Michael Flynn Plea Reversal Could Uncover Federal Corruption: Did Robert Mueller’s office withhold other evidence in Michael Flynn’s prosecution, either from the FISA court or from Flynn’s attorneys?

Our Beautifu San Francisco

m1mds757@yahoo.com

1:40 PM (5 hours ago)
to Sobrinocarabi5.11FranklinClarkElvaJimReneEdithJuanVirginia_gaxio.GrandSaulMiguelRobMartyTiresmeJoséKenichiroChiheeRobertReceptionistSeniorArlieTim

A Great Donald Trump Joke

Donald is walking out of the White House and heading toward his limo, 
when a possible assassin steps forward and aims a gun.

A secret service agent, new on the job, shouts, “Mickey Mouse!” 
This startles the would be assassin, and he is captured.

Later, the secret service agent’s supervisor takes him aside and asks, 
“What in the hell made you shout Mickey Mouse?”

Blushing, the agent replies, 
“I got nervous. I meant to shout, “Donald, duck!”

A Dog Film Festival In San Francisco

We went to a dog movie festival in SF. A large number of dogs got together in a movie theater. They socialized and got along. Alfred ate a copious quantity of popcorn. It was a wonderful time on a cold and a sunny day. The most fascinating part of the film festival was a documentary on a three-man expedition that went close to the North Pole. They took along three dogs. The dogs slept outside the tents every night; even when it went down to -40 Centigrade. The expedition encountered packs of white wolves with the average wolf the size of Alfred (100 lbs,) The wolves and the dogs communicated by howling and barking. The wolves (sometimes in packs of 20) never attacked the humans or dogs. They did sneak into one of the tents one day and steal food.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

A Retired Houston Police Department Officer Talks About Mass Shootings and Out Mental Healthcare System

This is a long, but incredibly, worthwhile read from a close, personal friend of 50 +/- years. As a longtime member of the Houston Police Department, in various capacities, she has valuable insight to the event this past week in Florida that I, & most people, aren’t aware of. I urge you to take the time to understand one of the contributing factors, not just to last week, but an ongoing “plague” in our great country. Thank you!
-quote-
If you have walked a police beat… you will understand my view… If you have received a phone call from a friend needing help for a mentally ill family member…. You will understand my view. If you over the years have changed your mind to not get involved in situations for fear of being hurt or killed… you will understand my view. If you are tired of seeing homeless people on the street… You will understand my view.
Good luck if you need a place to put a family member in need of psychiatric care unless you are a millionaire several times over. In the past fifteen years we have built more prisons than places to care for our mentally ill. This is a crime in itself.
Being in need of treatment is no longer enough. Because the mentally ill must now pose a threat to themselves or others — rather than simply requiring care — we must often wait for them to act on a threat before removing them from harm.
Changing the cost structures of mental health facilities from state to federal budgets created this present chaos. It began in 1972 and was called Deinstitutionalization.
Deinstitutionalization is the policy and practice of transferring homeless, involuntarily hospitalized mental patients from state mental hospitals into many different kinds of psychiatric institutions funded largely by the federal government.
When this occurred… the police departments were tasked with dealing with of all those who were let out of care and management facilities as well as all of the people who have nowhere to go but the streets. There is virtually no place to administer psychotropic drugs or places to manage psychotic episodes.
For 50 years now, the United States has pursued a policy toward the mentally ill that has left the sick untreated and our country unsafe.
Heinous episodes suggest a correlation between violent crimes and “deinstitutionalization,” the policy of closing state mental institutions. Of course, only a small fraction of the mentally ill commit violent crimes. Violence on a mass scale requires planning, which is why such horrific acts committed by the mentally ill are rare. But they are far from unknown as of late. The person is unknown because they have not been entered into the system…. There isn’t a system.
The plan was set in motion by the Community Mental Health Act as a part of John F. Kennedy's legislation and passed by the U.S. Congress in 1963. It is not working.
The costs have been far too high. This is true both for the mentally ill who have been left untreated and for the public that must endure their random acts of violence.
When not sleeping on the streets, many are again consigned to drift among a custodial system of prisons, welfare hotels and outpatient facilities.
Early 19th century, state legislatures got it right: They dedicated significant funds to the construction of palatial estates, designed by the era’s best architects, for the sole purpose of caring for the mentally ill through a method known as “the moral treatment.”
While there surely were some abuses, these institutions not only prevented the severely ill from harming others, they also provided them with a calming refuge — true “asylum” — from the gutters, jails and slum houses that were until then the default custodians of society’s “lunatics.”
Over the last half-century, big government rallied against these institutions and succeeded in seeing to their demise.
At midcentury, when these institutions were overcrowded, such criticism might have been justified, but the results today are far worse.
Since the 1960s, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, more than 90% of mental patients have been discharged from state care to live in ordinary society. In 1955, there were nearly 600,000 mentally ill patients in state psychiatric hospitals. Fifty-five years on, only 43,000 state psychiatric beds remain available for use.
Without proper care and separation from society, a percentage of the severely mentally ill now pose a serious danger to the public.
No one wants their parent or child in a facility, whether it is assisted living or a mental institution... but when needed it should be there for us and it should be a place of safety and quality care for them.
-unquote-

Saturday, February 17, 2018

A Literary Journey Into The Heart Of Russia

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/magazine/a-literary-road-trip-into-the-heart-of-russia.html?mcid=nyt&mc=einternal&subid=retention_hd%20subs&subid1=engagement&subid2=misc&tp=i-H43-A3-AHV-1PV8D4-1y-3HRqz-1c-1PUGoS-1KyWz0

Friday, February 16, 2018

A Special Thanks To The Wallace Family

Yesterday morning at the pool several us were discussing our lives growing up. There were some happy stories, some sad stories, and one tragic story (not mine,)
Dear friends, I could not get along with my mother. That is not to say that she wasn't a good person. It is not to say that I did not love her. I could no longer live under the same roof with her.
Ralph Wallace, Jr, Kathleen Emory Wallace, Ralph Wallace III, Kathy Wallace, and Franklin Wallace allowed me to live with them at 7150 Dillon Drive in the Garden Villas section of Houston until I graduated from Ross Sterling High School and went to the US Navy. They gave me love. They gave me warmth. They gave me hope in life. They showed me what a real family was.
All of you I will never forget what you did for me. I love all of you. Kathy please make sure that your mom (now 86) hears this message.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Does The President Of The United States Get "Sick Days?"

DOES THE PRESIDENT GET SICK DAYS?

president-donald-trump
The president of the United States never technically takes a day off. Even when they’re ostensibly “on vacation” they are still very much the leader of the country and have many duties to fulfill on a daily basis. For example, even while on vacation, they need to continue to have things like intelligence and national security briefings and other such meetings so that if an emergency does suddenly come up, they can react quickly in an informed way. Because of this, the president, in addition to never technically being able to have a full day off while on vacation, doesn’t get sick days either.
Of course, the president is not only human but also generally speaking a quite old human, and thus they get ill, occasionally seriously. So what happens then? This is where the 25th Amendment potentially comes into effect.
In a nutshell, among other things, it provides that if the president ever gets so ill that they cannot physically perform necessary presidential duties anymore, their vice president can become the “Acting President” on their behalf until they’re able to resume their duties. So, in a way, this is a mechanism for the president to take a sick day if they want it and whenever they want it.
It’s also noteworthy that even if the president does not wish to relinquish the office during a time when they are “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”, the 25th Amendment provides a mechanism for the vice president to simply take the office from the president until such time as the president is once again able to resume duties.
(Amusingly, it’s not fully clear here what the scope of this section of the 25th Amendment is.  For example, while the president is sleeping, and thus in an unconscious state, they are most definitely “unable to discharge the powers and duties of [the] office” until someone wakes them up. So technically the vice president and certain others could get together on any given night and temporarily make the vice president acting president until such time as the president wakes up and no doubt sends off the appropriate document to declare that they are, in fact, fit for duty, with Congress no doubt concurring at that point… Or, if I were president and my VP did that, I’d probably just take that rare opportunity to roll back over and sleep in for once, then maybe around noon have a leisurely breakfast before finally sending off the appropriate letter that I’m back in business.)
In the end, this latter rule allowing the vice president to forcibly take over is probably for the best as United States presidents are generally loath to give up the office, even temporarily. Despite many, many presidents having serious health issues and occasionally being incapacitated during their time in office (generally largely kept from the public eye at the time), only two have actually used this power in the over half a century since the 25th Amendment was ratified.
Breaking the trend, the first president to make use of the 25th Amendment was Ronald Reagan on July 13, 1985 when he temporarily officially bestowed the powers of the office onto Vice President George Bush while Reagan underwent surgery for colon cancer. Bush reportedly spent a whole 8 hours being president before Reagan decided he’d recovered enough from his surgery to start being president again.
A thing to note is that prior to handing off the powers of the presidency to Bush at 11:28AM, Reagan spent his morning as he normally did, going about presidential duties, and subsequently spent most of the evening after he became president again at 7:22PM catching up on everything he’d missed during the day. So not really much of a sick day.
The only other president to bestow the powers of the presidency on their vice president was George W. Bush in 2002 and later in 2007, each time so that he could have a colonoscopy. On each occasion, Vice President Dick Cheney was acting president for a little over 2 hours at which point Bush resumed his duties. Or to put it another way, during his 8 years in office, Bush technically had four hours of official time off, most of which he spent with a camera up his butt… (It’s good to be the president?)
This lack of leave taken for ill health is a surprising fact given, as previously alluded to, the large percentage of presidents who have suffered through various serious illnesses during their time in office.
Most infamously, Woodrow Wilson had a massive stroke in 1919 resulting in the temporary loss of use of the left side of his body, as well as him becoming blind in the left eye and with diminished vision in his right. What his cognitive state was at this time isn’t fully known, as this was all kept from the public by his wife, Edith, and his physician, Dr. Cary Grayson.
So how was he able to run the country in this state?  Well, he wasn’t really. His wife took over handling what information was passed to him and what issues she simply delegated out for other people to handle. She also barred any direct access to the president for several weeks after the stroke, with the lone exception being that Dr. Grayson was allowed to attend him (and we’re speculating nurses, though this is never mentioned anywhere we could find).
As Edith herself would later write,
So began my stewardship, I studied every paper, sent from the different Secretaries or Senators, and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I, myself, never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband.
That said, it is thought by many historians that her claim that she never made direct presidential decisions herself is at best stretching the truth and at worst a blatant lie. That’s not to mention completely controlling the information that went to the president and what tasks (and to whom) were delegated out is questionable for a person not elected to office to do, even for a day, let alone an extended period.
While Wilson did recover somewhat over the next year and a half or so of his presidency, in the interim there was much question over whether he was actually still mentally and physically fit enough to continue on as president.  Despite this and certain very pressing and far reaching matters being decided, like whether the United States should join the League of Nations, he refused to give up his position- a key point discussed when the 25th Amendment was being drafted a few decades later.
While other presidents had before and after Wilson suffered from various ailments, most notable to the development of the 25th Amendment was Dwight D. Eisenhower. While in office, he suffered a severe heart attack and then a subsequent stroke.  He also had to have surgery to remove about ten inches of his small intestine as a result of complications owing to Crohn’s disease.
During these times, he did attempt to take sick days by having Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr write up a document passing off some of the powers and duties of the president to Vice President Richard Nixon. Other presidents had more or less done similar things before when necessary, but always in secret, so as not to publicly reveal their medical issues. Eisenhower was essentially bucking the trend of keeping it secret and trying to set a precedent to make the whole thing official.
And, indeed, from a practical standpoint, Nixon and Eisenhower’s cabinet did take over his duties when he was incapacitated. It also could be interpreted that Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the U.S. Constitution did allow for such when the president was unable “to discharge the powers and duties of the… office”.
But the wording here is sufficiently vague to call into question whether in these cases the vice president is actually endowed with the powers given to the president. Because of this, despite Eisenhower giving the green light, there was uncertainty whether Nixon was actually the acting president or not at these times, which could have created major problems had certain emergencies come up.
The matter finally came to a head with a president most considered the picture of robust, youthful, health- John F. Kennedy.
It turns out, Kennedy essentially needed his own pharmacy and team of doctors to keep him functioning semi-normally throughout his presidency- a fact only quite recently made publicly known.
The medical issues Kennedy suffered from were many and serious (some of which may in turn have been caused by the extensive medication he regularly took). First up was a potentially life threatening problem in Addison’s disease, where the adrenal glands don’t produce enough of certain essential hormones.
Next he suffered from osteoporosis resulting in three fractured vertebrae in his back. He also suffered from irritable bowel syndrome that saw him dealing with severe abdominal pain and occasional dangerous bouts of diarrhea. Then there was his hypothyroidism. And, just for fun, likely because of some of the medications he was on, he seemed particularly prone to infections.
To treat all this, he was variously put on thyroid hormone, RitalinmethadoneDemerol, barbiturates (such as phenobarbital), various antidiarrheal drugs, testosterone, procainecodeinecorticosteroidsLomotilMetamucilparegoric, amphetamines, meprobamateLibrium, and given penicillin and various other antibiotics whenever infections would spring up…
Notably, many of these medications could potentially effect mood and his decision making ability. But without some of them, Kennedy would have been crippled by pain.  Even with them, as Kennedy’s political advisor, Dave Powers, once noted, Kennedy always traveled “with crutches”. Further, when he was out of the public eye, he walked
gritting his teeth…but then when he came into the room where the crowd was gathered, he was erect and smiling, looking as fit and healthy as the light-heavyweight champion of the world. Then after he finished his speech and answered questions from the floor and shook hands with everyone, we would help him into the car and he would lean back on the seat and close his eyes in pain.
Kennedy’s many maladies were not, however, what helped spur the creation of the 25th Amendment, though may have been had they been widely known.  Rather, it was when Kennedy was shot that everything finally came to a head, with the question being asked, “What would have happened had Kennedy lived, but been in a brain-dead state?”
As previously noted, while one could interpret Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution in such a way as to provide for the vice president to take over almost immediately in such cases, the wording wasn’t concrete enough on this or for many other such scenarios in which the vice president might need to become Acting President. It wasn’t even clear in these cases if the vice president did take over if the original president should get the job back if they were once again fit for office later during the allotted term.
This ambiguity is a major issue if, say, a nuclear strike was launched against the United States in the interim from when the president was no longer fit for office and when the government finally got around to deciding the vice president should indeed take over.
Thus, about a year and a half after Kennedy’s assassination, in July of 1965, congress sent the 25th Amendment out to the states to ratify, which it finally was on February 10, 1967, clarifying what should be done in many of these scenarios.
So to sum up, the president is not given any allotment of sick days, but the 25th Amendment does provide them a mechanism to take such if they feel like they’re unable to perform the duties of the office. But, for reasons like that it’s not politically couth for the president to show any weakness, only two presidents in history have ever done this since it became an option- both of whom were having something done to their colon at the time…
For the rest, when they were medically incapacitated, they seem to generally try to hide this from the public whenever possible and to delegate tasks and rearrange their work schedule as best they could to take a little time off. And, where they couldn’t do such, they simply muscled through the rest of their duties.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Bitcoin: The Price Of Money

The Price of Money

Bitcoin mania has reached fever pitch as its value ebbs and flows with the debate over its future in global markets.
But for all the headlines, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are bad news for the environment, the New York Times reported.
Creating just one Bitcoin requires tremendous amounts of computing power – and as much electricity as the average American household uses in two years, according to figures from Morgan Stanley.
All of the computers connected to the Bitcoin network consume as much power each day as some medium-sized countries – and Bitcoin is just one of many cryptocurrencies.
It’s due to a complex algorithm needed to create cryptocurrencies, the answer to which requires lots of guesswork by computers and, consequently, lots of electricity.
That’s why cryptocurrency server farms have popped up near geothermal and hydroelectric power plants around the globe, CNBC reported.
Some say the environmental footprint is worth it to create a new financial system free from the influence of traditional financial players, but others are calling for green solutions.
“I would personally feel very unhappy if my main contribution to the world was adding Cyprus’s worth of electricity consumption to global warming,” Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Bitcoin competitor Ethereum, told the New York Times.